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Missed opportunities sink Patriots in AFC title game loss to Baltimore Ravens

AFC Championship Football

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady looks up at the scoreboard during the second half of the NFL football AFC Championship football game against the Baltimore Ravens in Foxborough, Mass., Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
(Photo by AP)

FOXBOROUGH – The opportunities were there.
The New England Patriots just couldn't seem to get in position to take
advantage of them.

Tom Brady will not be lacing up his cleats
against the San Francisco 49ers in an attempt to match the Super Bowl ring
count of childhood idol Joe Montana.

Instead,
he and the six other Patriots voted to the Pro Bowl will be eating pineapple in
Hawaii instead of gumbo in New Orleans next week – as Matthew Slater so aptly
put it earlier this season – after falling to the Baltimore Ravens 28-13 in
Sunday's AFC Championship at Gillette Stadium.

The
Ravens head to the Super Bowl where coach John Harbaugh will be pitted against
brother Jim's 49ers, who beat the Atlanta Falcons earlier Sunday in the NFC
title game.

"Obviously
we're down," tight end Aaron Hernandez said. "Nothing you can really
do now but get prepared for next year."

The
missed opportunities for the Patriots were plentiful and will likely haunt many
players as they reflect on what went wrong. There were the three third-and-2s
the Patriots failed to convert in the first quarter as
Baltimore's offense remained bottled up, including a shot downfield to Wes
Welker that fell through his hands.

There
was the chance for seven points right before halftime that resulted in a mere
three after Brady (29 of 54, 320 yards, one touchdown, two interceptions)
scrambled for 3 yards and failed to call timeout until it was too late to run
another play before a field-goal attempt.

Then
there was the chance to get back in the game that was fittingly cut short when
Bernard Pollard – the man who sidelined Brady in 2008, Wes Welker at the end of
the 2009 season and Rob Gronkowski in last year's AFC title game – laid a
crushing blow that knocked the ball loose and knocked running back Stevan
Ridley out of the game in the fourth quarter. The Ravens quickly added a
touchdown that put the game out of reach.

There
was also the 1-for-4 mark in the red zone, three turnovers and the 4-for-4
mark the Ravens posted inside the 20.

It
just wasn't good enough.

"They
made more plays than we did," said Welker, one of the few players to speak in a
solemn locker room. "At the end, it just wasn't enough for us. That's
the way it goes."

New
England tried to play the part of hero, but couldn't muster enough to mount a
comeback. The Pats pushed down the field on the ensuing drive and stalled when
Brady failed to find Deion Branch in the end zone on fourth down.

After
the Patriots forced a punt on the next series, Brady found Welker for a 36-yard
completion that kept hope alive, but his next pass was tipped at the line of
scrimmage by defensive end Pernell McPhee and intercepted by linebacker Dannell
Ellerbe.

It
was a contest that felt as though it were waiting for a big play to occur. But
it never came. Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco (21 of 36, 240 yards, three
touchdowns), who has gained notoriety for his big-play ability, never found one
of his receivers for a backbreaking bomb, despite several attempts to do so.

Perhaps
the turning point arrived in the form of a decision by Patriots coach Bill
Belichick to punt the ball in the third quarter instead of going for it on
fourth-and-8 from the Baltimore 34-yard line.

In
Sunday's extremely windy conditions, a 52-yard field-goal attempt may have
proved difficult for kicker Stephen Gostkowski, but instead of running a play –
as has been the team's mode of operation in such situations – New England
punted the ball away.

Belichick
said there was never any thought of kicking a field goal or going for it. Nevertheless, Baltimore took over at its 13, drove the length of the
field and went ahead 14-13.

The
first quarter was little more than a glorified punting contest with a New
England field goal mixed in. The Patriots had little trouble moving the ball
early in the game, but they failed to convert the aforementioned third-and-2s
and allowed the Ravens to get away with an anemic performance that saw them
gain 43 total yards on 1-of-6 passing by Flacco in the first 15 minutes.

But
after Patriots cornerback Aqib Talib suffered a thigh injury with four minutes
remaining in the first, things opened up for Baltimore on offense and the
chains started moving. A 17-yard pass to Dennis Pitta and 25-yard completion
set up Baltimore's first touchdown and gave it a 7-3 lead.

The Patriots finally broke through for a touchdown to go ahead
and had the opportunity to take a big lead into halftime after pushing into the
red zone with under a minute left, but things came apart when Brady scrambled for
a 3-yard gain but allowed 22 seconds to run off the clock before calling a
time-out.

Belichick explained the Patriots were
hoping to get another play off before calling a time-out to set up a field goal.
Unfortunately, it took too long and they were forced to settle.

That
play, like many others, will likely be looked at countless times until
training camp opens next summer.